Inviting Friends Poll Results

File this poll under, “We’re curious.” It’s always a question floating around about how much marketing matters, where you should focus your marketing and whether it’s worth it. So we decided to hit the streets and find out, in an incredibly unscientific manner, how many church guests come from personal referrals.

Not surprisingly, 35% of you have no idea what percent of visitors come at the invitation of a friend. Most of us don’t have access to church stats and survey responses, so this was anticipated.

And now for the confusion: About 40% of you say at least 50% of visitors come at the request of a friend. Our Church Marketing Sucks official statistician has yet to be hired, but I can tell you this: most of you say most of your guests come because of a personal invitation.

A quarter of you, however, say less than half of your visitors come at the request of a friend. Maybe you are the marketing elite. Your guests come because of your totally awesome marketing campaigns or because you have a really unique and inviting church.

Whether you’re getting people in the doors with or without the invitations of friends, we’re big fans of more butts in pews (but even bigger fans of seeing Christ in more hearts). So keep on doing what you’re doing to get visitors in the door. This week, our question is simple: Does your church still advertise in the local phone book?

Post By:

Joshua Cody

Josh Cody served as our associate editor for several years before moving on to bigger things. Like Texas. These days he lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, and you can find him online or on Twitter when he’s not wrestling code.

2 Responses to “Inviting Friends Poll Results”

In terms of inviting friends to church, I think there are real regional differences in doing this. I’d have to say that here in the Northeast, where I am, it is a pretty serious social affront to invite someone to visit your church, regardless of how well you know them. Thus, not many people come to our church because their friends brought them.
Conversely, when I’ve lived and visited in the American South and Midwest, I’ve been invited to church by distant relatives, first-time acquaintances, and business associates. Nobody seems to think it’s rude or presumptuous to invite a near-total stranger to come to church with them in these parts of the country.
Possibly this is the kind of thing that skews the results. There may be more Northeasterners than you think tuned in to CMS trying to figure out how you folks in the Heartland do it!

I think advertising really just enhances your ‘visible’ presence in the community. People get used to the fact that the church exists, and hopefully if the marketing is decent they get a reasonable perception of the ‘type’ of church you are. I am not sure how many people actually come to church because of it….but it would be interesting to see how many stay after it. There’s something to be said for the good old fashioned personal connection through a friend!